According to the 1998 Los Medios y Mercados de
Latinoamérica study, the average Latin American between the ages of 12 and
64 years old spends an average of 2.7 hours per day listening to radio.
During the typical week, 85.2% of these people listen to radio at some point.

As with most mass activity, we expect that some people listen
to radio more often than others and that a small proportion of the population
account for a disproportionately higher proportion of total volume of
listening. For this article, we define a 'heavy radio listening' as a
person who listens to an average of four or more hours of radio each day.
According to the 1998 Los Medios y Mercados de
Latinoamérica study, 25.5% of Latin Americans can be characterized as
heavy radio listeners. These heavy radio listeners spend an average of 6.3
hours per day listening to radio and account for 60% of the total volume of
radio listening.

Who are these people? What are their
characteristics? The following table provides the incidence of heavy radio
listener by demographic group. Marginally speaking, the heavy radio
listeners are more likely to be found in the southern countries (Argentina,
Chile, Peru, Paraguay and Uruguay), female and18-34 years old.

When do the heavy radio listeners listen to radio? The
next table shows the time spent on radio listening by different time periods
within the day. In this table, we have shown the time spent listening (in
hours) by heavy and non-heavy radio listeners, and we computed an index that is
the ratio of the two numbers. Therefore, a high index means that the heavy
radio listeners spends relatively much more time. The heavy radio
listeners simply listen to more radio at all times of day. Relatively
speaking, the differences in time spent are least (that is, the indices are
smallest) during the prime dayparts for radio (namely, between 6am and
10am). The absolute gap in time spent is during the day on weekdays.
This points to the fact that someone can accumulate a very large number of radio
listening hours if they either stay at home with the radio in playing in the
background, or if they work in an environment where the radio is playing.

Daypart

Radio daily listening hours by
Heavy Radio Listeners

Radio daily listening hours by
Non-Heavy Radio Listeners

Index

M-F 6am-10am

1.71

0.55

311

M-F 10am-3pm

2.38

0.41

580

M-F 3pm-7pm

1.55

0.34

458

M-F 7pm-12m

0.85

0.23

370

M-F 12m-6am

0.40

0.035

1143

Sat 6am-10am

1.42

0.43

330

Sat 10am-3pm

2.05

0.55

373

Sat 3pm-7pm

1.24

0.34

365

Sat 7pm-12m

0.67

0.16

419

Sat 12m-6am

0.25

0.032

781

Sun 6am-10am

1.05

0.31

339

Sun 10am-3pm

1.43

0.38

376

Sun 3pm-7pm

0.90

0.26

346

Sun 7pm-12m

0.49

0.10

490

Sun 12m-6am

0.20

0.012

1739

TOTAL

6.28

1.49

421

What do these heavy radio listeners listen to on radio?
The next table shows the types of program regularly listened to by heavy and
non-heavy radio listeners. Since all the indices are greater than 100, the
heavy radio listeners simply listen to more of everything.

Radio Program Type

% Heavy Radio Listeners
used

% Non-Heavy Radio
Listeners
used

Index

News

57%

37%

154

Sports

31%

20%

157

Traffic

16%

7%

224

Weather

20%

10%

191

Top 40 hits

12%

6%

224

Spanish pop music

27%

17%

162

Spanish rock music

21%

11%

191

Spanish ballads

32%

21%

150

Portuguese pop music

33%

24%

141

Portuguese rock music

11%

7%

169

Portuguese ballads

18%

10%

179

English pop music

31%

18%

172

English rock music

21%

11%

184

English ballads

31%

16%

201

Tropical music

56%

37%

146

Country music

12%

5%

227

Classical music

13%

7%

202

Jazz music

6%

3%

219

Religious music

15%

6%

238

Commentary/talk

19%

9%

209

Advice/opinion

12%

5%

240

If we consider the fact that each person has exactly 24 hours
at their disposal each day, then what one does becomes an allocation problem
within a constrained budget. At any moment, there are multiple available
choices and the person chooses whichever maximizes his/her utility (in the sense
used by economists). As we have reported in the beginning, the average
Latin American spends an average of 2.7 hours per day listening to radio
(possibly concurrently with other types of activities such as housework or
commuting). By comparison, this same average Latin American spends an
average of 4.49 hours a day watching television.

The heavy radio listener spends an average of 4.43 hours a day
watching television, compared to the 4.51 hours for the non-heavy radio
listener. So the radio listening did not significantly displace television
viewing by heavy radio listeners.